Muhammad Ali's 1970s home to be sold

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CHERRY HILL, N.J., Aug. 29 (UPI) -- A house in Cherry Hill, N.J., where Muhammad Ali lived for three years in the 1970s, is to be sold at auction.

Ali bought the Tuscan-style villa in 1971 for just over $100,000 and told an interviewer soon after that he spent about $150,000 converting it to "a little mansion," The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. He sold it in 1974 for $175,000 to Anthony J. Micale, owner of 10 area McDonald's franchises, who has owned it ever since.

The house is scheduled to go on the block Sept. 8. Patricia Friedrichs of Prudential Fox & Roach Realtors, the listing agent, said Micale has offered it for sale several times in the past decade.

The house has quite a few amenities, including an in-ground swimming pool, remote controlled gates and a greenhouse dining area next to the kitchen. It also has something extra.

"It still has the mystique of being Muhammad Ali's house," Friedrichs said.

Ali's Cherry Hill years were bookmarked by two fights with Joe Frazier. Frazier defeated him in a battle for the heavyweight title at Madison Square Garden in New York in 1971, while Ali won the non-title return match in 1974.